A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. The poignant quality of Bradbury's writing, the evocative elements that will capture others than his usual audience, combine to make this an unusual reading experience.Īre we not men? We are-well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).Ī zombie apocalypse is one thing. This demands rather special handling and understanding.

Douglas is now a central figure, now a participant, and frequently merely a passer-by in the lives of his elders. There's a succession of murders of young women there's a newcomer, an old lady, who learns through the children not to cling to her past there's a strange love affair between an elderly spinster and a young newspaper man there's an ancient whose vivid reliving of his past brings history to life for the boy listeners.

Rather is it a blend of nostalgic recall - very definitely an adult remembering, interpreting, philosophizing over the brief period of awakening that belongs to adolescence, and episodes about incidents, often horrors, related to other people in the town. The dandelion wine becomes a symbol of successive events, week by week. A friend who has been all-compassing moves from town it is almost more than he can bear - and he turns to his small brother with unexpected attachment.

A country summer becomes something that must be seized and recorded with every passing hour. Death and old age as universal factors of living shock him to the depths.

Douglas Spaulding at twelve is suddenly excitingly aware of the world around him, of the magic and wonder and understanding that had passed him by. The impossibility of pigeon-holding Ray Bradbury as a science fiction writer is once again emphasized in this charming philosophical study of adolescence.

Dandelion ray bradbury